About me

I am a clinical and research physiotherapist. After working clinically for six years, I undertook a PhD at the University of Sydney Pain Management Research Institute. I completed my PhD in 2002 and had research posts at the University of Queensland, University of Sydney and Oxford University, UK.

I was appointed University of South Australia's Inaugural Chair in Physiotherapy, and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences, in 2011.

I am supported by an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship.

I am the Chair of PainAdelaide Stakeholders' Consortium, which runs a few outreach activities such as the Ride for Pain and PainAdelaide Scientific meeting. I established Pain Revolution, a bicycle-bound rural outreach tour from Melbourne to Adelaide,... Read more

About me

I am a clinical and research physiotherapist. After working clinically for six years, I undertook a PhD at the University of Sydney Pain Management Research Institute. I completed my PhD in 2002 and had research posts at the University of Queensland, University of Sydney and Oxford University, UK.

I was appointed University of South Australia's Inaugural Chair in Physiotherapy, and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences, in 2011.

I am supported by an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship.

I am the Chair of PainAdelaide Stakeholders' Consortium, which runs a few outreach activities such as the Ride for Pain and PainAdelaide Scientific meeting. I established Pain Revolution, a bicycle-bound rural outreach tour from Melbourne to Adelaide, held in April 2017.

I lead the Body in Mind Research Group, based here at the University of South Australia and at Neuroscience Research Australia, in Sydney. The Body in Mind research group investigates the role of the brain and mind in chronic pain. Pain is a huge problem - it affects 20% of the population and costs western societies about as much as diabetes and cancer combined. My research group does experiments in humans - both healthy volunteers and people in pain, and clinical intervention studies and clinical trials of treatments for defined chronic pain conditions. Our research is supported by NHMRC Project Grants and many of the group have scholarship or fellowship support. We have eight nationalities and several disciplines represented. For those of you keen on 'metrics', my main metrics are: Total number of papers - about 260; H-index - 59; competitive grant funding - about $20 million.

I have given over 60 keynote talks at big international meetings, and I have spoken at the national meetings of relevant organisations (e.g. Pain Society, Physiotherapy, Medical or Psychological Association) in 32 countries. David Butler and I wrote Explain Pain, which is now in six languages, and the Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer. Explain Pain Supercharged (a clinician's manual) is due out 2017. With others we wrote The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook. I also wrote a small book called Painful Yarns - Metaphors and stories to help understand the biology of pain.

I have won a few prizes including the 2012 NHMRC Marshall and Warren Award for Innovation and Potential Transformation. I was very chuffed to be made an Honoured Member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association in 2014.

Like all researchers, I do my fair share of manuscript and grant reviewing. I am an Associate Editor for PAIN, the Journal of Pain, the European Journal of Pain and the British Journal of Sports Medicine. I am Chief Editor of BodyinMind.org, which pushes cutting clinical pain science research to over 45,000 unique visitors from over 100 countries every month.

I supervise PhD students and regularly host post-doctoral fellows for between 1 - 3 years. Expressions of interest in joining our group should be directed in the first instance to tracy.jones@unisa.edu.au. We have many such expressions of interest each year so it is best to make contact at least 12 months in advance.